The Music Industry’s Network: A collective export strategy for the Danish music industry
By: Max Bülow Lassen // Photo: Line Svindt
Niels Mosumgaard, director of the Music Industry’s Network, found his way to this year’s SPOT+ conference to present the trade network’s outline for a collective export strategy for the Danish music industry. The plan was created in the shadow of two recently released rapports on the Danish and European music export strategy that both call for wide-spread changes to our understanding of music as an export product.
Before discussing the export strategy, it’s necessary to introduce the Music Industry’s Network. Niels Mosumgaard, director of the network, described it as a trade network of music industry businesses that contains the entire industry value chain: from music production to marketing, distribution, and sales. The network was created in 2020 in a collaboration between IFPI, Koda, Musikforlæggerne i Danmark, and DPA with the intention of putting a spotlight on issues that affect the entirety of the musical ecosystem in Denmark. According to Mosumgaard, the network’s raison d’être is to create a common voice for the music industry – an industry that tends to work individually. Additionally, he adamantly pointed out that the trade network is apolitical, and that it’s an “organizational network that isn’t itself an organization”.
The presentation of the trade network was preceded by a small disclaimer. Referencing MXD and SPOT amongst others, Niels Mosumgaard insisted that Denmark has a proud tradition of supporting musical export projects, and he has no intention of changing that. Instead, the Music Industry’s Network insists that it’s imperative that the Danish music industry have a strategy that brings businesses together rather than being based on individual projects – like Norway and Finland have introduced for their respective music industries. At this point, Mosumgaard made an unexpected comparison. He pointed to the Danish water industry as a front runner when it comes to export strategies in Denmark. The Danish Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of the Environment have gone together to create a collective export strategy for the water industry – thereby addressing the industry collectively instead of focusing on singular businesses. Moreover, they’ve worked to analyze both barriers and drivers in the industry. According to the Music Industry’s Network, it is essential to transfer this approach to the Danish music industry.
If you ask Mosumgaard, there’s still a long way to go. Here in Denmark, the industry has a tendency to focus on individual projects instead of a collective strategy. Customarily, the individual artist that is being pushed is still the point of departure. Instead, the Music Industry’s Network recommends that the industry have a greater focus on internationalization and a general emphasis on the long-term development instead of short-term successes. By implementing established systems and regular export practices that involve the entire value chain, it would be possible to create a more structured flow to the Danish music export, in turn enabling a more consistent approach rather than chasing sporadic export-successes like The Raveonettes or Lukas Graham.
Towards the end of the thirty-minute presentation, the Music Industry’s Network encouraged a cognitive break with the way we currently view music. Music isn’t just a cultural commodity. Instead, it’s necessary to view it as a commercial commodity also. Music export is therefore obviously an area that should be housed in the Ministry of Finance, not the Ministry of Culture, Mosumgaard explained.
This image of a collective Danish music export strategy is far from realized but taking the many smiles and applause in the audience into consideration, it’s by no means only the Music Industry’s Network that’s excited about this outline for a restructuring of Danish music export.